Journal
of Vasyl
Stefanyk Precarpathian National University
76
O.A.
Bigun
http://jpnu.pu.if.ua
Vol. 3, No. 4 (2016), 76-83
UDC 82.091:82-1/-9:821.133.1+821.161
doi: 10.15330/jpnu.3.4.76-83
Section:
MODERN STUDIES OF LITERATURE
THE PSALMS IN FRENCH AND UKRAINIAN LITERATURES:
VERSIONS BY CLÉMENT MAROT AND TARAS SHEVCHENKO
O.A. BIGUN
Abstract. The article deals with the first exemplars of the psalms translations into French and
Ukrainian. Sociohistorical factors leading to a departure from canonical languages are analyzed.
Similarities and differences in the process of psalms translation into national languages are
identified. Translations of psalms are spread in those countries where the national language and
literature are at the stage of search and formation. At that, both in Protestant and Catholic poetry
one can easily trace the tendency for the departure from the original, the manifestation of
individual author’s origin due to the movements for the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation
which considerably changed attitude towards individuality. The Book of Psalms, having its
problematic and thematic elaboration of the expression of human feelings, distinctive lyricism,
strength and intensity of emotions, bright ideas, providential vigour, precision and great simplicity
in the poetic representation of religious feeling, in this case became a universal model prototext
which inspired poets to its further actualization.
Keywords: Psalms, translation, Reformation, Orthodoxy, culture, Clément Marot, Тaras
Shevchenko.
1. INTRODUCTION
Between the poetic interpretations of the psalms of Clément Marot and Тaras Shevchenko three
centuries and different historic cultural epochs have passed, yet exactly these poets made the first
attempt to introduce the psalms to the national cultural field.
Clément Marot’s poetic psalmody is the subject matter of literary researches not only in France, but
also beyond its borders (G. Défaux, A. Ehsan, M. Lasard, C.A. Mayer, F. Preisig, V. Shyshmarev,
D. Wursten). For a long time the linguistic and literary world of “The Psalms of David” was a subject
matter of researches of native and foreign Shevchenko Study (I. Aizenshtok, I. Betko, T. Bovsunivska,
Y. Harasym, I. Danylenko, V. Domashovets, R. Koropetskyi, M. Laslo-Kutsiuk, M. Pavliuk,
V. Radutskyi). Although historical and cultural foundation that has caused the emergence of Clément
Marot and Taras Shevchenko’s psalms often escapes scholars’ attention. The article suggests learning
poetic translations in the cross context of cultural historical and sociopolitical discourse, intellective
spiritual and artistic visions. Such cross context extends the boundaries of traditional Literary Studies
where one can observe the transition from essentialism of literariness to public codes, conventions and
The Psalms in French and Ukrainian Literatures … 77
representations. Combining differential cultural contexts one can expand significantly the horizon of a
literary text interpretation. This is the advantage of such “culturological break”.
For Europe the psalms were a peculiar “common fund” of Christian book-learning. After East-West
Schism ideological and functional pressure of psalmody changes in some way. It is common knowledge
that in the West there exist a widespread tradition of writing new psalms that gradually become
additional but very significant element of a liturgy. The Reformation had a considerable impact on it, as
Protestants interpreted the Holy Scriptures in their own way which allowed them to express easily
their religious feelings exactly in new psalms. The Catholic Church considered it necessary to give a
poet a total freedom in this sphere. Instead, in Eastern Christian tradition The Book of Psalms was
considered an orientation of wandering of a soul (Аthanasius of Alexandria) and King David was
thought to be a companion in life’s journey (Gregory of Nyssa). In Byzantine tradition The Book of
Psalms is held in great respect: it is often published as a separate book, it teaches literacy. The Book of
Psalms is used for church and funeral services. One even tells fortune on it. In general, in Orthodox
East the writing of new psalms ended with a definite establishment of the liturgical canon.
The connection of the psalms with the Liturgy entails their linguistic specification, as canonical
language of the Catholic religious cult was Latin in the West and Church Slavonic – in the Slavonian
East. The translations of the Holy Scriptures into a native language appeared due to the Reformation –
a religious movement that debunked an excessive use of the Roman Catholic Church and fully formed
the idea of translation of the Holy Scriptures into colloquial languages and its usage in church services.
Since the time of the translation of sacred texts into national languages The Book of Psalms has become
the subject matter of artistic adaptation in European poetry.
Translations of the psalms are spread in those countries where national language and literature are
at the stage of searching and formation (French, German, English, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian,
Moldovan, Russian, Ukrainian and other literatures). At that, both in Protestant and Catholic poetry
one can easily trace the tendency for the departure from the original, the manifestation of individual
author’s origin due to the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation movements which considerably
changed attitude towards individuality. The Book of Psalms, having its problematic and thematic
elaboration of the expression of human feelings, distinctive lyricism, strength and intensity of emotions,
bright ideas, providential vigour, precision and great simplicity in the poetic representation of religious
feeling, in this case became a universal model prototext which inspired poets to its further
actualization.
It is known that the first translations of the psalms in French belong to one of the founder of the
Reformation movement Jean Calvin (1509–1564). Although his psalms aimed exclusively at “linguistic”
recoding of texts from Latin and that conformed to ideological orientation of the Reformation. The first
attempt at poetic translation belongs to Clément Marot (1497–1544). His poetic style is notable for its
innovation. He enriched French poetry not only with innovative ideas and forms, but also with the
Renaissance outlook. The poet was a master of verses consisting of 10 syllables, his style was called
“marotic” because of harmonious combination of naivety, intelligence and candour. Scientists
(G. Défaux, V. Shyshmarev, Yu. Vipper, D. Wursten) claim that Clément Marot could have become a
decent “father” of French classic poetry, whereas such honour was lately given to Pierre de Ronsard
(1524–1585).
The poetry of Clément Marot reflects the whole range of correlation and cooperation between
cultural historical tendencies of Renaissance and Humanism and intentions of the Reformation. In his
works the poet relies on courtesy and intellectual tradition. Speaking about means of artistic expression
one can strongly feel a considerable influence of “great orators” (Jean Molinet, Jean Lemaire de Belges,
Pierre Gringoire), that accentuates intellectual level of his poetry. The poet also adds to this
aristocratism folk elements borrowed from François Villon. Clément Marot enriches genre variety of
French poetry by means of antique exemplars – elegies, panegyrics, epigrams, epistels, odes. He
borrows a sonnet from Italian literature. Finally, Clément Marot was the first French poet to refer to the
treasury of the Old Testament texts, i.e. the psalms. The poet was an opponent of religious fanaticism.
Such notions as freedom of conscience and the dignity of man were important for him. Adherence to
78 O.A. Bigun
Lutheranism was ascribed to Clément Marot, though the poet did not count himself an orthodox
proponent of a certain branch of Christianity. Both Catholics and Protestants now admitted that he was
their adept, now excluded him from their communities.
2. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Researchers of Clément Marot’s writings tried to interpret his world vision mostly through the
perspective of Reformation beliefs. Thus, analyzing the texts of Clément Marot in terms of Lutheran
ideas, Michael Screech claims that though the poet does not express openly his Reformation conviction,
however his works contain many features in common with Lutheran dogmatic beliefs [5, p. 38].
Claude-Albert Mayer in his book La Religion de Marot was against a simplistic interpretation of the
philosophy of the French poet. The researcher analyses very carefully Marot’s religious views, as in
XVI c. criticism of religion and church, its reformation that is the centre of ideological and political
conflict, is reflected almost in all significant works of the poet. C.-A. Mayer conclusively proves that the
whole poetry of Clément Marot is directed against the Catholic Church, its dogmas, against Catholic
ideology in general. Although the poet does not count himself a Protestant. Thus, taking much from
Calvinistic ideas, Marot reserves the right to freedom of expression, to own appreciation of reality,
which can disagree with Catholic or Protestant dogmas [3, p. 159].
According to Mayer, Marot’s humanism is the source of his freethinking and love of liberty. One
should mention the fact that it was not matter-of-fact scientific humanism, but benevolence and
humanity concerning nation and social struggle of the epoch. Exactly this kind of humanism Marot
turned into an implacable enemy of Catholicism and it was he who initially made it a proponent of the
Reformation. This humanism increased his strength to shed lost illusions and hopes concerning
Protestantism [3, p. 167].
An inclination to universal truth in the poetry of T. Shevchenko (1814–1861) is closely connected to
assiduous attention to the Christian idea. First of all, Christianity attracted T. Shevchenko by its ideal
humanity, poetization the commandments of love, brotherly love, peace, craving for will, concern
about social justice, about the most humiliated and pathetic. The question of spiritual and religious
tradition in the works of T. Shevchenko is very important as the literary process of the epoch that is
studied beyond in-depth analysis of a culture leads to a surface dialogue of literary movements which
do not influence real literature of the epoch. Strong and underlying cultural trends stay undiscovered
and sometimes unknown for researches. The writings of T. Shevchenko are notable for the fact that in
the Russian Empire of that time Shevchenko had the courage to raise the question of Ukraine as a
separate culturally-civilized model. The poet demonstrates it at a quite sensitive level as the question of
the Byzantine spiritual tradition. Shevchenko’s reception of Byzantism clearly draws the distinction
between the models of culturally-civilized orientations. Thus, the Christianity of Kievan Rus
concentrated firstly on sociocultural aspect of a new religion. Whereas in the Moscow version political
imperatives of Byzantism prevailed: absolute rule of an emperor/tsar, paternalism of an owner, a high
level of centralization, the confirmation of religious mythology “The authorities are ministers of God”,
a close alliance between authority and the Church.
The reason for the difference between perceptions of one and the same spiritual tradition lies in a
special emotionally-aesthetic sensitivity of Ukrainians which is considered to be a specific feature of
national world view and value orientations of Ukrainian culture. Due to cordocentric intentions of the
Ukrainian ethnos, in the Kievan Rus period Byzantine canon was mainly deprived of rigorism and
orthodoxy in respect for the Word and bookish wisdom. Whereas in Russia, beginning with the idea of
the third Rome of Philotheus of Pskov, from the aesthetics of Byzantine tradition there has remained
only a political myth, in which the key principle of superiority of the general over the individual was
converted. Shevchenko was indignant about this mythologized religious and culturological model and
that is mentioned many times in “the Journal”. Thus, in the impressions of the town of Cheboksary the
poet makes scathing comment about the religious doctrine of autocratic Russia: “An insignificant but
The Psalms in French and Ukrainian Literatures … 79
picturesque town. It is at least half-full with houses and churches, if not more. And all of them are of
ancient Moscow architecture. For what and for whom are they built? For the Chuvash people? No, for
Orthodoxy. The fundamental unit of old internal policy of Moscow is Orthodoxy” [6, p. 102].
For Shevchenko Christianity was a perfect humanity with its brotherly love, mercy, righteousness,
fairness. Shevchenko’s deep religiosity was the foundation that contributed to the ability to
differentiate between true faith and dogmatic extremes. For Shevchenko Byzantine ceremony of the
Moscow Church personified sanctimoniousness and ceremonialism that according to external
manifestation of the faith in God invalidated fundamental Christian virtues. Ceremonialism inherently
presupposes dogmatic and cultic conflict. It is its essential characteristic. It can be predominantly seen
in relation between different movements and structures of one and the same religion, because in that
case essential sameness specifically manifests itself in various external forms, inevitably coming to the
foreground, especially in the crisis periods of historical development. There is no doubt that
Shevchenko realised that the Russian Empire used the Orthodox religion as a means of political
aggression.
This thought has also its artistic embodiment. In the poem “The Caucasus” the poet, exposing
Russian Orthodoxy, equates it with imperial politics of expansion and oppression:
Shrines and chapels, candelabra,
Ikons, clouds of incense,
Deep prostrations, never tiring,
Honouring Thine Image;
— Grant them theft and war and murder,
So that they may kill a brother,
Behold, they offer gifts to Thee!
Loot from a fire, fine tapestry! [7, p. 96].
Shevchenko totally rejected religiosity as Orthodox caesaropapism, as it implies deterioration,
defilement, filthifying of a person, ceremonialism. The national bureaucratic hierarchy of churches
separates people, destroys fraternity and love, God’s grace. It creates dogmatic theology that divides
global Christianity.
Every connection between faith and some strategies, national political demands, world missionary
proclivity (as in Jesuits and Russian Slavophils), with compulsion and gregariousness was alien and
unacceptable for T. Shevchenko. In the poem “Heretic” he interprets the power of Popes as an immoral
phenomenon that is depraved for national societies and completely contradicts the philanthropic
nature of Christianity. In “The Haidamaks” and other later poems the poet claimed that it was exactly
Jesuits who created Ukrainian-Polish discord. But he also does not show mercy to Orthodoxy. The
words “Orthodoxy” and “Orthodox” he uses not for identification of his faith, but predominantly with
a negative emotional colouring.
The problem of the confrontation between faith and ceremonialism in Shevchenko’s works has an
open nature. Advocacy of “sanctified” faith – “fleshless idea of goodness and chastity”
(T. Shevchenko) – before the menace of its turning into idolatry is once again an evidence for poet’s
deep religiosity – “fervent and devoted for the whole life” (M. Dragomanov). Instead, ceremonialism
appears when with the form the essence is lost, when ritual becomes so stodgy, there are many of them
and they are so complicated that even a priest does not know for sure what they mean. The more
perfect and spiritual a person becomes, the less they need these “crutches”. The time will come and the
term “ritual” will pass into history. It is a question of distant or maybe not-too-distant (only God
knows) future, as one can read in the Apocalypse: “And I saw no temple in the city…” (Revelation
21:22), as there is no literal temple, no ceremonial service, no worship of God in a new Church, in the
New Jerusalem, but there is worship of spirit and truth. According to Paul the Apostle, faith is “the
assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). For a religious person
faith appears in unity with God and adherents, in love and rectitude, in keeping the Commandments,
in a longing to actively imply faith within the society, in a desire for perfection and salvation.
80 O.A. Bigun
Although exactly in Orthodox environment Shevchenko has been since his childhood, researches
do not exclude typological similarities between certain artistic concepts and the Protestant ideology
that originates not only from the ideas of the Tübingen School, but also from a mundane apprehension
of The Gospels in a Protestant environment, with which Shevchenko got acquainted when
communicating with Petersburg Germans during the education in the Academy of Arts. However, in
the works of Shevchenko one is likely to observe profound personified reception of evangelical texts.
D. Stepovyk notes, tat as to Protestants Shevchenko’s critical attitude to formal Christianity, to
Orthodox fundamentalism and to its bearers represented by Russian sanctimoniousness of that time –
actually coincides with traditional criticism of Protestants. Shevchenko does not come up against any
Protestant affiliation of that time – either Lutherans, or Calvinists, Anglicans, Reformists, Methodists,
Baptists. On the contrary, the poem “Neophytos” and especially the poem “Heretic” show
Shevchenko’s religious tolerance. He clearly inclines to positive statements on Christian subject, as well
as to critical ones about clerics, who have forgotten about Ten Commandments – to Christianity which
was worshiped by Hryhoriy Skovoroda, his great predecessor in the field of Christian intellectualism”
[8, p. 266]. Hence, to both C. Marot and T. Shevchenko Christianity of only one tradition, as well as the
ideas of “pure”, initial Christianity were close.
It takes Marot almost three years to work on the translation of the psalms. This magic of “three
years” has something in common with Shevchenko‘s one of the most creative period of his life, when
he wrote numerous masterpieces, that anyway have a number of common features with psalms
translations on the ideological thematic level. Careful and thorough reading of the Bible that was a
permanent subject of Shevchenko’s lectureship of that time induces to an extensive use of Biblical
stylization. Thus, using Biblical epigraphs in such works as “A Dream (A Comedy)”, “Big cellar”, “The
Caucasus”, the poet creates a certain prescription for a reader – to match the written with high spiritual
model. The first psalms interpreted by Shevchenko appeared at the beginning of December, 1845.
Living in a landlord S. Samoilov in a village Viunyshche T. Shevchenko completely rewrote the whole
cycle to a handwritten collection “Three summers” dated “December, 19, 1845, Viunyshche”.
The psalms of Clément Marot were published for the first time in 1541 in Paris. The collection
included first thirty psalms in French. Later in Geneva the poet completes the work on nineteen more
psalms. Together with “Cantique de Simeon” it constituted fifty of his works which were published for
the first time in 1543. The translations of the psalms became the most famous works of Clément Marot,
as they became “military songs of Huguenots” (V. Shyshmarev). The psalms of Clément Marot became
the core of “The Psalter”, which was published in Geneva in 1562. The translations of Тhéodore de Béze
(1519–1605) constituted the remaining part of “The Huguenot Psalter”. He was a prominent
representative of Huegenot literature, polemist, the theorist of French Protestantism.
The influence of the Reformation on a literary process was controversial and diverse. On the one
hand, the Reformation led to an escalation of a religious fight, it actualised religious questions that
caused a rapid increase of the Bible translations into national languages and of religious polemic
literature. On the other hand, a new deviation of the center of spiritual life in religious metaphysical
area arose in a literary process: God and the relationship of a person with God became a central
problem of fiction that was situated in the field of force of the Reformation.
C. Marot’s translations became the beginning of the tradition of psalms translation in French
literature. In his works one can observe the same tendency, as in later translations of Protestant poets
(Jean de Sponde, Théodore Agrippa d’Aubigné) – the tendency of easy managing with the original. As
opposed to Catholic tradition, for Protestant poets the Biblical texts are active and living tradition and
ecclesiastical reality, and a temporal distance between the original text and reality is erased so much
that it acquires the traits of the real present. A. Ehsan notes, than Clément Marot makes the psalms
more modern, draws parallels between the Jewish and French people, king Francis appears as a good
pastor, poet, owner, like King David. The image of the French monarch is built on the basis of medieval
“idealization”. It can be seen in the dedication where the king is said to be a “superchristian” (“au Roi
très chrétien”). Although, one can see the influence of humanism that appears in the poet’s expression
of a wide range of emotions of the person who is destined to be at the head of his nation [1, p. 67].
The Psalms in French and Ukrainian Literatures … 81
The psalms of C. Marot’s are notable for rhythmic variety, rich stanzaic construction,
melodiousness of verses. Shevchenko’s translations are distinctive for its specific rhythm and melody.
Thus, analysing the 132nd psalm of Shevchenko and comparing it with the original, V. Radutsky claims
that exactly “a sophisticated taste of the poet, his profound understanding of the essence of the Holy
Scripture helped him to write a masterpiece in 22 lines out of three poems. The reader who knows well
the original Hebraic text, cannot avoid the feeling (almost mystical one, as it is not a drawback of a real
poetry) that first two lines of an interpretation have the same number of syllables in comparison with
Modern Hebrew where these lines became a favourite at all times folk song. This mystical impression is
strengthened by the fact that 22 is the number of letters in Modern Hebrew alphabet [4, p. 7].
In comparison with C. Marot, who sees the image of King Francis in King David, T. Shevchenko
takes on himself the image of one more God’s elect – King David the psalmist and that fits in the
conception of the “profiles” and “masks” of Shevchenko (B. Rubchak). This version can be also proved
by the name, though not all the psalms, interpreted by Shevchenko, are known to belong to David (the
43rd and 136th psalms). Probably, the poet chose those psalms which strike a chord in his heart and
provide an answer to moral and spiritual questions. In the field of the Theory of Translation this
method is equated with the author of the original. Due to close reading a literary text is unfolded as a
manifestation of the author’s life. In this process the person who interprets a literary text can
understand the author more than he can do it; that means that the person has to understand not only
another person’s thought, language, but also their past.
As well as Shevchenko, C. Marot made translations based on a secondary source. It was a Latin
version of The Book of Psalms for the French poet. T. Shevchenko used Church Slavonic text of the
Book of Psalms of the Elizabethan Bible published in 1751. The influence of Church Slavonic source is
extended on the poetic language of Shevchenko’s psalms, enriched by Church Slavonic words and new
lexical morphological units that contributed to poetic figurativeness and pathetic style. The
“untranslatability” of a great part of Church Slavonic words in “The Psalms of David” is explained by
V. Koptilov by the fact that in Ukrainian there are no correspondences at the same level as Church
Slavonic words: such specific lexical and phraseological elements cannot be substituted by anything
without significant stylistic loss. The poet understood it fully with the help of his perfect sense of
language, so translating “The Psalms of David” from the Church Slavonic Bible he did not translate
many words and phrases [2, p. 53].
One says that T. Shevchenko did not know the Church Slavonic language well. Analyzing some
differences between Shevchenko’s translation of the psalm 81 and Church Slavonic text, B. Struminsky
believes that the understanding of Shevchenko was close to folk’s, Ukrainian, that is approximate,
intuitive and imprecise [9, p. 268]. Although V. Radutsky, performing a close poetic analysis of
Shevchenko’s texts and comparing them to the original in the Hebraic language and then to Church
Slavic variant of psalm, definitely proves that the poet preserves a deep meaning of the Biblical texts in
his interpretations, appealing to his interpretation. “That is why interpretations sometimes are more
comprehensible to readers than the psalms themselves. It gives us the right to confirm that Shevchenko
managed to create what he intended to: interpretations, i.e. works that could transfer exotic images of
the Ancient Near East to the ground of Ukrainian culture. Shevchenko, probably, has spent years
reflecting on original psalms before writing each interpretation” [4, p. 21].
Researches have different presumptions concerning T. Shevchenko’s choice of the psalms (they are
as follows: 1, 12, 43, 52, 53, 81, 93, 132, 136, 149). The chosen psalms are considered to be key psalms, as
they precisely render the whole spiritual strength of this important book. The sacral number 10 draws
one’s attention – it is the number of the psalms chosen by T. Shevchenko. It must have been a conscious
choice because using rich expressive features of psalmody the poet created his “ten commandments”
for the Ukrainian people and embodied in them his national politic credo. Sense content of these
psalms gave a possibility for extrapolating through associations the Old Testament texts to modern age
and for encoding tragic Ukrainian reality in interpretations. An ancient work, belonging to the artistic
unity of Ukrainian literature of XIX century that was developing on ungoverned territory in the
conditions of ethnic oppression, often continued the analogies: “Israel people – Ukrainian people”,
82 O.A. Bigun
“Babylon – the Russian Empire”. Comparing to Marot’s psalms interpretations, Shevchenko’s
translations are distinct for more free interpretation in morally patriotic and national liberation tone.
3. CONCLUSIONS
To conclude, the poetic interpretations of the psalms of Clément Marot and Тaras Shevchenko
demonstrate different types of artistic consciousness and multi-vector nature of aesthetic search in the
dynamics of fiction evolution, however exactly “psalm” tradition becomes a considerable step in
establishing poetic traditions of European national literature which have common general Christian
memory for poetic assimilation and for the actualization of the Old Testament past. It is important that
in a culturological and historical area the translations of C. Marot and T. Shevchenko show the
ideological ambivalence of this phenomenon: on the one hand – the connection with big confessional
cultural historical communities; on the other hand – both French and Ukrainian translations that
demonstrate the breaking of the tradition of domination “confessio” over “natio” in sociohistorical
processes of France and Ukraine.
REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
Ehsan A. Clément Marot: The Mirror of the Prince. Rookwood Press, Charlottesville, 2005.
Koptilov V. Actual problems of Ukrainian literary translating. Dniprо, Кyiv, 1971. (in Ukrainian)
Mayer C.-A. La Religion de Marot. Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance. T. XXXIX. Droz, Genève, 1960. (in
French)
Radutsky V. Some paraphrases and allusions from Old Testament in Shevchenko’s poems. Sloviansky
svit (ed. G. Skrypnyk), 8 (2010), 3–28. (in Ukrainian)
Screech M.-A. Clément Marot: A Renaissance Poet discovers the Gospel: Lutheranism, Fabrism and Calvinism
in the Royal Courts of France and of Navarre and in the Ducal Court of Ferrara. Brill, Leiden, New-York,
Köln, 1994.
Shevchenko T. Complete Works: in 12 Vs., V. 5. Naukova dumka, Kyiv, 2003. (in Ukrainian)
Shevchenko T. Song out of Darkness (translated by Vera Rich). The Mitre Press, London, 1961.
Stepovyk D. Accept Christ: Shevchenko as the believer in God. Olena Teliga Publishing House, Кyiv, 2013.
(in Ukrainian)
Struminsky B. Shevchenko and Old Church Slavonic. In: Zaleska-Onyshkevich L. (Ed.) Svity Tarasa
Shevchenka, V.2. New-York, 2001, 265–270. (in Ukrainian)
Address: O.A. Bigun, Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University, 57, Shevchenko Str., IvanoFrankivsk, 76000, Ukraine.
E-mail: [email protected].
Received: 10.10.2016; revised: 05.12.2016.
_____________________
The Psalms in French and Ukrainian Literatures … 83
Бігун О.А. Псалми у французькій та українській літературах: переспіви Клемана Маро і Тараса
Шевченка. Журнал Прикарпатського університету імені Василя Стефаника, 3 (4) (2016), 76–83.
Йдеться про перші зразки перекладів псалмів французькою та українською мовами.
Аналізуються суспільно-історичні чинники, що призвели до відходу від канонічних мов. Виявляються
спільні моменти та розбіжності у процесі перекладів псалмів національними мовами. З’ясовано, що
Псалтир з його проблемно-тематичним розвоєм відтворення людських переживань, проникливим
ліризмом, гостротою й напругою почуттів, глибиною ідей, провіденціальною міццю, точністю та
геніальною простотою в поетичному вираженні релігійного почуття, постав у французькій та
українській літературах універсальним зразковим прототекстом, який надихнув Клемана Маро і
Тараса Шевченка на його подальшу актуалізацію.
Ключові слова: псалми, переклад, Реформація, православ’я, культура, Клеман Маро, Тарас
Шевченко.